March 31, 2023 Trump indictment news

By Aditi Sangal, Adrienne Vogt, Matt Meyer, Tori B. Powell and Amir Vera, CNN

Updated 12:07 a.m. ET, April 1, 2023
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10:45 a.m. ET, March 31, 2023

Secret Service will meet with New York officials Friday to discuss Trump’s arraignment and security threats

From CNN's John Miller

Police, media and a small group of protesters gather outside of a Manhattan courthouse after news broke that former President Donald Trump has been indicted by a grand jury on March 30 in New York.
Police, media and a small group of protesters gather outside of a Manhattan courthouse after news broke that former President Donald Trump has been indicted by a grand jury on March 30 in New York. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Members of the Secret Service are meeting Friday with officials from the New York Police Department (NYPD), the District Attorney’s investigators as well as court officers to go over the logistics of the historic arraignment for former President Donald Trump that is currently set for Tuesday, April 4, according to law enforcement sources.

These officials will conduct a walk-through of Trump’s movements, starting with his motorcade, followed by the arrest process, which includes how he will be fingerprinted, his mug shot and then how they will get him to the courtroom for his arraignment, according to the same law enforcement sources.

In addition, law enforcement sources also say authorities are monitoring social media and assessing threats that are being posted against law enforcement, the Manhattan District Attorney Bragg, and his staff. They are also monitoring plans for protests and disorder.

10:14 a.m. ET, March 31, 2023

Manhattan district attorney's office again slams House GOP's efforts to investigate Trump probe

From CNN's Annie Grayer and Sara Murray

The Manhattan district attorney's office is again criticizing House Republicans for their efforts to intervene in its investigation into former President Donald Trump, accusing them of collaborating with Trump to "vilify and denigrate the integrity of elected state prosecutors and trial judges."

The district attorney's general counsel Leslie B. Dubeck penned a letter Friday to three House GOP committee chairmen, citing Trump's harsh rhetoric aimed at District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

"As Committee Chairmen, you could use the stature of your office to denounce these attacks and urge respect for the fairness of our justice system and for the work of the impartial grand jury," she wrote in the letter, which was addressed to Reps. Jim Jordan, Bryan Steil and James Comer.

"Instead, you and many of your colleagues have chosen to collaborate with Mr. Trump’s efforts to vilify and denigrate the integrity of elected state prosecutors and trial judges and made unfounded allegations that the Office’s investigation, conducted via an independent grand jury of average citizens serving New York State, is politically motivated," Dubeck continued.

Dubeck's letter called on House Republicans to withdraw their demand for information, accusing them of launching their investigation for political purposes to defend Trump. The chairmen launched an investigation into the Manhattan district attorney shortly after Trump warned he would soon be arrested. 

Claiming the committees lack jurisdiction to oversee their state prosecution and discrediting any valid legislative purpose to their inquiry, Dubeck cited CNN reporting to claim that “it appears you are acting more like criminal defense counsel trying to gather evidence for a client than a legislative body seeking to achieve a legitimate legislative objective.”

In response to the House GOP's inquiries into how federal funds were used in the probe, Dubeck disclosed that approximately $5,000 was spent "on expenses incurred relating to the investigation of Donald J. Trump or the Trump Organization" between October 2019 and August 2021, adding that the money came from "federal forfeiture money that the Office helped collect" and most of the costs had to do with Supreme Court litigation. The letter said that no federal grant money was used toward expenses in the Trump investigation. 

Dubeck also included details about the three federal grant programs the office participates in regarding its casework and shared that “no expenses incurred relating to this matter have been paid from funds that the Office receives through federal grant programs.”

Dubeck wrote that if the chairmen are not willing to call off their inquiry, the DA’s office is still willing to meet.

“If you will not withdraw your request, we reiterate our willingness to meet and confer with you or your staff about how we can accommodate your request without violating our obligations as prosecutors to protect the integrity of an ongoing criminal prosecution,” according to the letter.

8:28 a.m. ET, March 31, 2023

Biden declines to comment on Trump indictment

From CNN's Arlette Saenz

President Joe Biden repeatedly declined to comment on the indictment of former President Donald Trump as he departed the White House this morning.

Remember: There has been no statement from Biden following the news of the indictment. No comment came from the White House and there is little evidence that public posture will change any time soon, even as officials acknowledge they will be closely monitoring any security issues that may develop.

“He’s the president, not a legal analyst,” one Democrat in regular contact with the White House said. “He has an administration to run.”

Biden’s initial silence in the wake of Trump’s indictment isn’t a surprise. While officials inside the West Wing were as surprised as the rest of the country by the news, there was no scramble to prepare anything to release publicly.

Instead, Biden faces a convergence of two clear, if unofficial, animating principles of his first two years in office: don’t engage in ongoing legal cases and don’t get distracted by issues that don’t have a tangible effect on Americans.

The approach is designed, at least in part, to keep the administration’s focus on its priorities and agenda. But the unmistakably clear contrast it creates with Biden’s predecessor is neither subtle nor unintentional as a political message.

Read more here.

8:54 a.m. ET, March 31, 2023

Here are some facts on Trump’s "Soros" attack on the Manhattan district attorney

From CNN's Daniel Dale

In the wake of a Manhattan grand jury’s historic decision to indict Donald Trump, the former president and some other prominent Republicans, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have invoked liberal billionaire George Soros in their attacks on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Trump claimed in a statement that Bragg was “hand-picked and funded by George Soros.”

Soros, a longtime supporter of Democratic campaigns, various liberal causes and prosecutors who favor criminal justice reform, has been a frequent target of antisemitic conspiracy theories painting the Jewish philanthropist as a puppetmaster behind various US and international events.

Here are the facts:

Donations to a PAC that supported Bragg

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks at a press conference after Steve Bannon, former advisor to former President Donald Trump, surrendered at the NY District Attorney's office to face charges on September 8, 2022 in New York City.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks at a press conference after Steve Bannon, former advisor to former President Donald Trump, surrendered at the NY District Attorney's office to face charges on September 8, 2022 in New York City. (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)

Bragg — a graduate of Harvard Law School, a former federal prosecutor and a former chief deputy attorney general for New York state — won the race for Manhattan district attorney in 2021, and his campaign was supported by the political action committee affiliated with Color of Change, a nonprofit advocacy group – co-founded in 2005 by Van Jones, who later became a CNN commentator – that promotes criminal justice reform among other racial justice causes. The Color of Change PAC, which has backed progressive district attorney candidates around the country, spent slightly over $500,000 supporting Bragg, Color of Change president and PAC spokesperson Rashad Robinson told CNN last week.

The Color of Change PAC has received significant funding from Soros, who has for years been a vocal advocate of criminal justice reform and of progressive district attorney candidates. Soros was the PAC’s biggest donor in the 2021-2022 period, PolitiFact has reported.

Soros spokesperson Michael Vachon told CNN last week: “Between 2016 and 2022, George Soros personally and Democracy PAC (a PAC to which Mr. Soros has contributed funds) have together contributed roughly $4 million to Color of Change’s PAC, including $1 million in May 2021. None of those funds were earmarked for Alvin Bragg’s campaign. George Soros and Alvin Bragg have never meet in person or spoken by telephone, email, Zoom etc. There has been no contact between the two.”

In addition to these donations to the PAC, CNBC reported that another Soros organization, the Open Society Policy Center, gave the main Color of Change nonprofit $7 million in 2021. Open Society spokesperson Thomas Watson told CNN in an email last week that the funding was a five-year grant and part of a publicly announced $220 million investment in racial justice efforts focused on Black-led organizations; Watson said the grant was “in support of (Color of Change’s) social welfare activities, and not earmarked for any specific work. The grant agreement stipulates, among other restrictions, that no OSPC funding can be used for partisan or political activities.”

As PolitiFact has noted, Soros’s son, Jonathan Soros, and Jonathan’s wife, Jennifer Allan Soros, each made $10,000 donations to Bragg’s campaign during the Democratic primary in April 2021. They had made smaller donations, totaling $450, earlier in the year.

Color of Change president says attacks are ‘antisemitic’ and ‘anti-Black’

Robinson said that attacks suggesting Bragg is a puppet of Soros, because of George Soros’s donations to the Color of Change PAC, are not only “antisemitic” but also “anti-Black.”

He said the attack is premised on the idea that “Black people are so incapable of having their own ideas about how to fight for justice” that the Black-led PAC could not have come up with its own strategies.

The ‘$1 million’ figure is exaggerated

Trump claimed last week that Soros spent more than $1 million on Bragg’s campaign, but that figure is inaccurate.

The Color of Change PAC did announce in May 2021, the month that Soros made a $1 million donation to the PAC, that it was planning to spend over $1 million on an independent expenditure campaign in support of Bragg’s candidacy. But the PAC paused the pro-Bragg spending after hearing an uncorroborated allegation against Bragg that it was not able to thoroughly investigate at the time because of legal restrictions on PACs communicating with candidates, Robinson said. It ended up spending about half of what it had planned, Robinson said, and kept the rest of Soros’s donation for other uses.

“Soros didn’t give us money to give to Alvin Bragg. Soros made a donation to Color of Change,” Robinson said.

7:18 a.m. ET, March 31, 2023

Trump was initially asked to surrender in New York today, his lawyer says

From CNN's Paula Reid

 

Former President Donald Trump was initially asked to turn himself in to authorities in New York today — the day after a Manhattan grand jury voted to indict him, his defense lawyer Joe Tacopina says.

Tacopina says he's surprised by the timing of the indictment and that more time is needed, as the Secret Service that protects the former president needs to coordinate his surrender in New York.

6:51 a.m. ET, March 31, 2023

How the potential 2024 GOP field is responding to Trump's indictment

From CNN's Gregory Krieg

The potential 2024 Republican primary field quickly coalesced on Thursday around a strategy for responding to former President Donald Trump’s indictment: Attack Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the prosecutor, but stop short of praising Trump.

If the news of the former president facing more than 30 counts related to business fraud was unprecedented, the reaction from his possible GOP rivals was, in large part, familiar. Rather than risk the backlash from base voters loyal to Trump, ambitious Republicans zeroed in on a liberal foe. It’s a tactic that underscores the former president’s hold over the Republican Party – even when under indictment.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks to Iowa voters gathered at the Iowa State Fairgrounds on March 10, 2023 in Des Moines, Iowa.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks to Iowa voters gathered at the Iowa State Fairgrounds on March 10, 2023 in Des Moines, Iowa. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, widely viewed as Trump’s most formidable potential Republican opponent, did not mention the former president in his response, instead going after “the Soros-backed Manhattan District Attorney” – a reference to the billionaire liberal donor George Soros often at the center of conservative conspiracy theories.

“The weaponization of the legal system to advance a political agenda turns the rule of law on its head. It is un-American,” DeSantis tweeted. “The Soros-backed Manhattan District Attorney has consistently bent the law to downgrade felonies and to excuse criminal misconduct. Yet, now he is stretching the law to target a political opponent.”

DeSantis also reiterated that he would not “assist in an extradition request” for Trump, a Florida resident. Trump is expected to appear in court on Tuesday in New York, where he had lived most of his life.

Former Vice President Mike Pence responds to Wolf Blitzer.
Former Vice President Mike Pence responds to Wolf Blitzer. (John Nowak/CNN)

Former Vice President Mike Pence, for years one of Trump’s most ardent defenders before offering some measured criticism after the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol, called the indictment of his former boss “an outrage” and suggested that Bragg was politically motivated.

Pressed by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, who noted that a grand jury voted to charge Trump, Pence doubled down.

“But when you have an attorney general in New York, a Manhattan DA, that targeted one particular American in their campaigns, I think that offends the notion of the overwhelming majority of the American people who believe in fairness, who believe in equal treatment before the law,” he told Blitzer in an interview Thursday evening.

Bragg already had some name recognition among Republicans who sought to tie his progressive positions on criminal justice – in a city they often depict as being besieged by violent crime – to national Democrats like President Joe Biden. In the run-up to the indictment and then in its immediate aftermath, even those Republicans who have been more willing to criticize Trump denounced Bragg’s investigation as a political stunt or an abuse of power.

Read more here.

8:37 a.m. ET, March 31, 2023

A recap of the hush money payment scheme that led to the indictment of Donald Trump

CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig explains the hush money payment scheme and how it is connected to the indictment of former President Donald Trump.

Watch:

8:41 a.m. ET, March 31, 2023

Analysis: Rupert Murdoch’s media machine offers full-throated defense of Trump after grand jury indictment

Analysis from CNN's Oliver Darcy

Rupert Murdoch attends the US Open final in September 2017.
Rupert Murdoch attends the US Open final in September 2017. (Mike Segar/Reuters/FILE)

The unprecedented news of former President Donald Trump's indictment sent convulsions through the media landscape, with outlets like CNN quickly shifting into breaking news mode and devoting hours of programming to wall-to-wall coverage on the major development.

But on Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, which had given the former president the cold shoulder since the January 6 attack, the network quickly pivoted into a stance reminiscent of years past: defending Trump at any cost and portraying the legal system as a deep-state, corrupt force in American society.

“Third world tactics.”

“Police state.”

“Political persecution and election interference.”

That’s just a tiny taste of some of the extreme rhetoric that aired Thursday night on Fox News, where Murdoch’s stable of right-wing hosts and commentators painted an ugly portrait of America, one in which supposedly George Soros-controlled prosecutors target conservatives in an unjust manner for the sole purpose of destroying opponents of the Democratic Party.

It came despite the relationship between Murdoch and Trump being on the rocks as of late.

Trump bashed Murdoch earlier this month as a “MAGA Hating Globalist RINO” and accused him of “aiding & abetting the DESTRUCTION OF AMERICA.” And, recently revealed messages Murdoch sent in the aftermath of the 2020 election showed that the right-wing media mogul believed that Trump was a danger to the country.

And yet, Murdoch allowed the incendiary pro-Trump rhetoric to grip his network on Thursday night.

Watching Fox News felt like being taken back in time to another era. It was evocative of the days in which hosts like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson assailed Robert Mueller’s Russia probe and the impeachment trials.

If there was any doubt that Fox News might not offer a full-throated defense of Trump today, given the disgraced Republican’s shaky relationship with Murdoch, that has been erased.

And Fox News isn’t the only outlet in Murdoch’s empire rushing to defend Trump. The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, which is known to echo Murdoch’s personal views, published a piece calling Trump’s indictment a “sad day for the country.” The editorial suggested that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg had carried out the action for political purposes.

The New York Post also appeared in Trump’s corner. The outlet’s website prominently featured a story saying Bragg “has a bad case of bias,” among other Trump-friendly articles.

I texted Murdoch on Thursday night asking how one could square his behind-the-scenes rhetoric, brought to light by Dominion Voting Systems’ case against Fox News, with the narrative his outlets were pushing. I didn’t get an answer.

But perhaps the messages released in the Dominion case, showing network leaders were terrified its audience would change the channel over its scrutiny of Trump, can offer us a good clue. He is almost certainly looking after his bottom line.

As Murdoch said, “Everything at stake here.”

8:38 a.m. ET, March 31, 2023

Trump indictment is an "internal" matter for the US, Kremlin says

The indictment of former US President Donald Trump is an “internal” matter for the United States and not a matter that Russia will comment on, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Friday during a regular call with journalists. 

"I do not think that this is a topic for any of our comments. These are internal American processes that we do not consider it necessary to comment on in any way," Peskov said.